A thoughtful approach to advanced computer technology is changing
the face of learning at Reed
A decade ago,
Charlene Makley’s teaching
tools would have been textbooks, a chalkboard, and boxes and boxes of
slides. They might still be, if at some point during her Ph.D. studies
the anthropologist hadn’t “decided to go digital.” For
one thing, she didn’t want to have to grapple with balky slide
projectors. But she also recognized that she was at a pedagogical fork
in the road—and she took a decisive step in the direction of new
technology.
Makley schooled herself in how to scan, enhance, and combine images,
archive them electronically, create PowerPoint presentations, and hunt
down resources
on the web. When she arrived at Reed three years ago as an assistant
professor of Asian studies, she was one of the few new faculty members
to ask for
a scanner. “ I hit the ground running,” she laughs.
Today Makley is able not only to tell her students about a Tibetan ritual,
but to take them there virtually. For her class on the anthropology of
sex and gender, she can draw on an archive of images to illustrate sexism
in advertising. “ I have visualized my teaching,” she says.
“It makes the written word so much richer and opens students to
forms of learning and thinking that only happen through images, not text.”
Reed students and the rest of their generation,
born and raised on visual media, take this new approach in stride. But
it does represent a shift for many college and university faculty members.
“Some personalities embrace technology, others want to see it tried
and tested, still others remain skeptics,” says Makley, who with
a couple of colleagues has presented informal faculty workshops on the
use of technology in teaching. “Here at Reed, the trend is toward
trying new things and being curious about the possibilities.”